"The Road to Ruin" is the Bacon's Rebellion blog dedicated to transportation and land use issues in Virginia.

Monday, June 20, 2005

June 20, 2005, Edition of Bacon's Rebellion Now Online

The latest edition of Bacon's Rebellion has been posted online. You can read it here.

Of particular interest to this transportation/land use blog are the columns written by EM Risse. They include:

Reforming the Property TaxForget about providing "relief" for residential property taxes. That's a Band-Aid. Restructure taxes to eliminate incentives behind so much of today's dysfunctional economic and social behavior.

METRO Ills and Base ClosingsIn the absence of balanced system capacity and Subregional demand, the METRO will be a long-term drain on Virginia's treasury. But the proposed military base realignment could help create that balance.

Cohousing and Dooryard DensityThe "Cohousing" movement provides useful data on density for residential projects. If re-developed at "Cohousing" densities, our Subregions could accommodate growth for years without consuming any more land.

2 Comments:

"The next two columns will focus on action agendas for mobility and shelter that, along with reformed tax policy and governance restructuring, will encourage the evolution of functional human settlement patterns. "

This is typical of EMR. On one hand he argues that those in rural areas should pay their full costs, then he turns around and argues that those in what he call the most valued areas need tax encouragement.

"His data suggest that for this form of “well considered” housing, the Alpha Dooryard scale is between 12 and 26 dwelling units. ...The density of the projects listed in the Langdon article ranges from 23 to 45 persons per acre. "

Despite EMR's protests, I don't know anyone who would voluntarily live at such densities, given an alternative. On the other hand, I knw many who would voluntarily change a two acr lot for a lrger one, if they could afford it.

About Me

As a career-long journalist, I'm a publisher of blogs and electronic newsletters. I am deeply concerned about the irresponsible direction our country is taking, especially the decline of ethics in our business and political classes.

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Bacon's Rebellion publishes a biweekly e-zine and blogs devoted to politics and public policy in the state of Virginia.

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